Those Postal Stationeries!

Saumya's tribute to the Indian Postal Service

In this era of emails which have become the primary method of correspondence, how many of us actually sit down and write our letters? Write as in with ink and paper! And if you do, do you use the range of postal stationery which is available? Well, I do not, in fact all my correspondence is done via emails. Emails may make for rapid communication, but they can’t quite capture the romance of letter-writing. Letters capture the personality of the letter-writer, the stationery used, the colours, and of course the hand writing.

This post is not on the romance of letter writing but on the variety of postal stationery from the olden days. Most of these are still used but I can bet that most of us would not have used them in the recent years.

When was the last you wrote or received a postcard? Such a popular means of communication in the old days. A post card which barely has space to accommodate some twenty or thirty words. Some letter-writers had mastered the art of stretching this space to include the contents of an A4 sheet by scribbling all around the corners, often at impossible angles to the main text. Sometimes even spilling over into the address panel. which occupied one-quarter of the total area available. Perhaps they thought that the address panel was a waste of space!

There was an ingenious variant to the post card, the “jawaabi” post card, or return postcard. Twice the size of a normal postcard, folded half-way, each half a postcard. You would write your stuff on one card and leave the other blank except for filling in your own name and address. This was used when you thought the addressee whose reply was sought would be too imperious, or too lazy or too impoverished to source a postcard for a reply.

In my childhood, the postcard would cost 5 paise (or naye paise as it was then called). And this price held for long. My father, a regular letter writer, used to buy bunches of postcards on which he wrote his letters to his friends and students. He uses these cards even now- though not as often- in keeping with his  Gandhian philosophy of frugality.

Next in hierarchy was the inland letter (“antardeshiya patra”) for slightly more detailed correspondence. This blue coloured sheet- the shade of blue varying over the years- had a peculiar contour. It had dotted lines running across telling you where to fold the sheet of paper to form it into a compact “envelope-y” shape for its onward journey. And helpfully it was pre-gummed so just a lick of the tongue and the inland was as secure as a sealed envelope. The gumming would come unstuck pretty often and you would often receive an ‘open” inland. If you were lucky to receive one with the seal intact then a deft maneuver of the forefinger through the folds of the inland would open it up but not before tearing away the edges! And if you slit open the other edge, you got a jigsaw of a letter! Which often happened to letters which you desperately anticipated! (We shall not discuss the nature of these letters in this post!!). The inland costs thrice as much as the postcard, 15 paise!

Then there was this stately cream-colored envelope or “lifafa”. With a neatly embossed Ashoka emblem adorning the top right corner. It was sparingly used, only if some important documents had to be sent. For example sending the horoscope, bio-data and the picture of the prospective bride to the boy’s parents. In some cases, it was even “registered” with an additional postage to ensure safe delivery. And if you really wanted to know that the envelope had reached its destination, you posted it “Registered with AD”; AD standing for “acknowledgement due”. The AD card – filled in with your own address- would be stitched to the envelope. The postman would take the signature of the addressee on the AD card and duly return it to the sender via the postal system. However, since the AD card itself was not registered, you could never be sure of getting it back.

There was one hell of an ingenious way of ensuring a secure arrival. Instead of paying extra to register your mail, you would actually under stamp it. So if a bulging envelope needed 60 paise worth of stamps, you would affix only 50 paise worth. The postman would ensure that this difference was made good, and more, by the addressee who would end up paying the balance 10 paise and another 10 paise as a fine. Of course the addressee had the choice of not accepting it at all. This was called a “bearing” letter in postal terminology. And commonly berang in Hindi-fied English. This Hindi word literally means colourless which I thought was a rather unfortunate word for something so ingenious and, well, colourful.

There was an interesting reverse of the AD business- UCP- Under Certificate of Posting. To be used in cases where the arrival of the letter at the destination was not as important as the confirmation from the originating post office that the letter had indeed been delivered to them for its onward journey. For instance proof that you had submitted your report to the head-office. This facility was cleverly used by the parents of a hostel mate of mine. The son claimed that he wrote regular letters and it was the vagaries of the Indian Postal Service which made the letters disappear mid-way. This guy was actually not writing letters and made up this excuse. The anxious parents finally got a clever idea. This chap was instructed to send all his letters UCP!

Another interesting stationery item sold at the post office was the money order form, money order being the cheapest and easiest way to transfer money. You would buy a long-long form, thick and yellowing with the dull grey bilingual printing barely visible. You would fill up the form and submit the remittance along with the processing charges (commission) to the postal clerk. In course of time, the recipient at the other end would have his own postman calling-in and handing over the cash. Simple! I remember the agonized wait for the postman in the first week of the month desperately awaiting the month’s allowances from home when I was staying in a hostel! Most postmen expected a tip from the recipient of the money order!

The email and internet has slowly taken over these functions. The basic email substituting the postcard and the inland, the lifafa replaced by the “attachment” facility available in all email services, and money transfer possible with just a few clicks.  But, can an email replace the joy (and anxiety) of anticipating the postman on his daily rounds carrying his bagful of goodies?

Hala BHU!

I visited Varanasi on work earlier this week. And I insisted on squeezing in an hour’s trip to the BHU campus.

I will write later about the mixed feelings I had after visiting the campus after so many  years. In the meanwhile take a look at the images from this trip which I have put together in a powerpoint file.

Hope you enjoy!

And let me know how you felt.

Here is the ppt file Hala BHU!

Reflections on Stainless Steel

For the last several years our family has been having our meals off Corelle dinner plates. Those spanking new-looking, untarnishable, unbreakable symbols of modernity in a middle-class household. The virgin-white affairs with tiny floral prints. Not that it was always like that, the precursor to this was Melamine, which over a period degenerated into a commodity. Something which got sold by the kilos off the footpaths of Dadar and Karolbagh. Or Commercial Street and Pondy Bazaar in the South.

And prior to that was stainless steel! That pristine iron alloy!

A household using stainless steel vessels had “arrived”. That was the predominant feeling when I was growing up in a small town, Jamshedpur, way back in early 70’s! Households used different kinds of utensils. And that, for keen observers, marked a sharp class difference.

Enamelled dishes were meant for household pets. Period!

Brassware was old-fashioned and were used only during pujas at home and other ceremonial occasions like marriage ceremonies, Satyanarayan Bhagwan Kathas etc.

Though light in weight, low cost and heat-efficient, aluminum vessels were considered infra-dig. I remember the arrival of the first pressure cooker into our household. As is the norm, the cooker was made of aluminum, and for good reasons. While the possession of a pressure cooker was a matter of pride, perhaps the joy would have been far greater were it to be made of stainless steel.

Chinaware was too modern and households which were lucky to have these would have them on perpetual display in a cabinet. God forbid if a plate were to break or chip! But even a damaged plate was put to use. Essentially reserved for domestic help. Or for those rare occasions when we, the siblings, would consume non-vegetarian food at home. The non-veg. stuff of course was never cooked at home but cooked and delivered by a generous neighbour!

Stainless steel was so very much “in”. Here was something which was, well, “stain”-less. It would not impart a flavor of its own to the food, and it looked silver! Just the right accessories to the dining tables which were just about gaining entry into middle-class households. There were plates and half-plates and quarter plates, katoris and glasses, spoons of various sizes and ladles for all applications and varying sizes of bartans for boiling milk, setting curd etc. There was a temporary fad for stainless steel tea-cups with insulated walls which mercifully faded very soon

When I was a kid I would insist on having my meals off a specific plate. You will wonder what distinguished one plate from another. There was one unique feature, the engraved name on the plate. Whenever new vessels were bought, our mother, mai, would have names engraved on them. Typically, names of her children. This service was provided by the shopkeeper gratis. The name would be written on a piece of paper for the reference of the engraver who would pull out his machine and diligently set to work. Soon enough the “customized” dinner plate was ready. Different vessels had different engraving locations; the outer periphery on the reverse for the plate. In case of a katori, the name showed up on top of the outer surface close to the edges. So I had at least one thali and one katori with my name and I was quite possessive of these! Initially the thali was new and all-shining. And when the metal dulled and wore with the ravages of time (and strong doses of cleaning powder), the engraving would nearly vanish and it was a game to figure out from the faded lettering which plate “belonged” to whom!

A shiny thali had one more rather creative use; it would serve as a mirror when new. With passage of time the surface would get dulled and the plate would lose its original shape and then the reflection in the plate was reminiscent of the “Hall of Horrors” which one would visit in the melas. The reflection would come out all distorted and I had hours of fun making funny faces and watching the contorted, and faded, images on the plates!

Stainless Steel was an all purpose gifting idea, the quantity and quality of steel being determined by the “weight” of the occasion (annaprashan or someone’s daughter’s wedding). A katori and chammach would do for the former while a set of six dinner plates would be more suited for the latter. The gift also depended on the strength of the relationship enjoyed. If the kid enjoying the annaprashan was of a close relative’s, the katori and chammach could even be a silver affair or at least a set of Johnson’s Baby products along with the stainless steel katori et al. Similarly, for a close relative’s daughter’s wedding, a stainless steel dinner set was in order. There were a few pre-packaged brands available, the popular one being from SAIL (the “Salem steel” set). My marriage brought with it my wife, a welcome addition to my hitherto bachelor’s den. And with my wife and her many suitcases of her clothes, arrived a most welcome enhancement for my kitchen, a whole new shiny set of stainless steel utensils and vessels!

Which brings me to a story which sounds amusing now. I had my first invite to a birthday party. I must have been in Std One or Two. Those days, birthday celebrations were limited to one’s family and a special meal cooked at home for all to relish. Maybe a book of two gifted by parents. No hoopla of birthday cakes, balloons or streamers. No kids invited either. And here I was all agog with excitement about this friend’s birthday party. But the problem was, while I knew one had to carry a gift, I had no idea what gift to give. Parents had the solution, a stainless steel katori, of course. I still remember the amazement on my friend’s face as he unwrapped the pink gift wrapper off the katori. I do not know what he did with it later, but for that evening, the katori was displayed among all the books and toys and teddys he had received! I was a bit embarrassed, but this embarrassment was soon forgotten among the fun and games. I was a wiser man afterwards, no more stainless steel katoris for a classmate’s birthday party!

Now, thinking back, stainless steel had a kind of permanence. A symbol of middle class solidity. Imperishable, indestructible, inviolate. A “stainless-ness” a middle class family covets. That I think we lack in the ceramic versions (whether melamine or Corelle). Stainless Steel had a sonorous “ring” to it- a certain tone of voice if you please- which heralded to the world that the user family had arrived! The ceramic versions announce fragility (Corelle claims apart), the ephemeral nature of relationships nowadays.

Give me stainless steel, anyday!

PS: As luck would have it, At my engineering college at BHU, Varanasi, I studied Metallurgy- the engineering science dealing with metals and alloys. Including stainless steel. For the life of me I do not remember the composition of the steel alloy beyond a cryptic set of digits, 18:8.

Do not even remind me of the dreaded iron-carbon diagram. That, dear readers, is another story!

Five Domestic Devices My Sons Would Never Use: Part 2

The Radio-set:

One of the closest friends during my growing-up days was Murphy. A loyal friend, always reliable. Well, almost always! It was ready to sit up with me through the nights as I struggled with my exam preparations. And Murphy was one loyal entertainer! Never a dull moment with Murphy around.

Now a long forgotten name, Murphy used to be a leading brand of radios in those days. Remember?

We had the most gorgeous set ever, valves and all. Squarish one, with circular knobs for volume and frequency setting. A knob for navigating from medium wave to short wave 1, 2 and 3. The radio panel had a neatly printed list of broadcasting stations: Dacca, Hyderabad, Delhi, Lahore, Karachi etc. It amazed me as to why some cities long separated from India still found a mention on the panel. Maybe the radio was produced so long ago, maybe not. I wonder why I never questioned this of my parents.

It took some two minutes for the valves to warm up before we could hear any sound, and a few more minutes to zero onto the radio station of our choice. And then the somewhat unpredictable nature of the antenna which had to be coaxed into action during inclement weather by dexterous realignment. Some brave souls, like me, would clamber up to the house terrace to fix the antenna.

Jamshedpur had no local dailies then and no television, of course. So we would tune into our radio for any breaking news. Indo-Pak war of 1971, unseating of Indira Gandhi in the Allahabad High Court judgment, the notorious emergency of 1975, the general elections of 1977 and so on. All India Radio (AIR) was government controlled, full of government propaganda. Hence we would turn to the Hindi service of the BBC at 8 pm for authentic news. Our journalist heroes those days were Mark Tully, then the India correspondent for the BBC and the broadcaster Ratnakar Bharatiya who had an amazing voice.

And of course the commentaries of cricket and hockey matches. Does anyone remember Jasdev Singh’s electrifying description of a sudden center forward move; precise, speedy, accurate. And ending with the excited shout, “aur yeh goal!!” And Dicky Rutnagur with his clipped accent commentating on cricket. I followed India’s famous cricket World Cup victory in 1983 on the radio. When I told this to my sons, they were aghast! How could anyone follow a live cricket match via an audio commentary!

While news and commentaries were important, film songs were a key attraction. Good- old Murphy was the only source of entertainment we had. No TVs those days in Jamshedpur, record player with its 33 1/3 speed discs out of reach for most of us, cassette players very new. (The days of WaIkman, iPod and MP3 players were far away!!). Over time, I gained expertise in coaxing Hindi film music out of our radio at virtually all times of the day.  And night!

The biggest attraction of course was Binaca Geet Mala. We would wait the whole week to listen to this Hindi film song countdown at 8 pm on Wednesdays, paper and pen in hand to make a note of each of the sixteen top songs of the week. The ‘sartaj” geet, given a farewell from the weekly countdowns with blows of a trumpet, was marked with an asterisk in out list. Sharp at 8pm, Ameen Sayani mellifluous voice would breeze in through the airwaves, “Bhaiyo aur behno…”, and the weekly magic would commence. In between the songs, Ameen Sayani would alternately promote Binaca toothpaste- and toothbrush, advice a young lover how to handle unrequited love, give a teaser of songs which could be a part of the Geetmala or deliver homilies on how to be a better person. All delivered in his friendly and soothing voice.

How easy it is now for kids to just press a few buttons on the radio and get their favourite FM channels going. And flip to the next one with total ease! Will they ever understand the joys of coaxing a radio to action!

Will they ever understand the joys of a radio?

Surahi:

When I was growing up, the refrigerator was a rarity in most middle-class households. It was something to be inspected with great admiration and awe when visiting a rich uncle’s place! Kids would hover around the ‘fridge waiting for the hostess open the door and enjoy the sudden gust of cold air. A delight to the senses!

The source of cold water in those hot and humid days in the summers of Jamshedpur was a “surahi”. We rationalized this by telling ourselves that the surahi water was much more “natural” compared with the ‘fridge water. Could the ‘fridge ever replicate the delectable earthy flavour of the surahi water? Never!

Just at the onset of summer, a new surahi would be purchased and installed in a corner of the kitchen. The narrow opening of the surahi would be covered by a little clay lid to keep the dust and flies away. You come home, take a steel tumbler, tip the surahi at an angle on its base, fill the tumbler and enjoy the elixir! In a few days the lid would slip from someone’s hands and would promptly be replaced by a steel katori or a small steel saucer.

Those days guests would arrive unannounced. A knock on the door and there were the guests! Real ‘atithis‘. These were the days when the mobile phone was not there and even the now humble BSNL (then called “P&T department”) a phone connection was hard to get. Well, nearly impossible, unless you knew someone in the P&T department.

Mai, my mother, would quickly prepare for the visitor a glass of “saunf-ka-sherbat“. She would get on to the sil-lodha set and grind some saunf. This would be stirred into a stainless steel glass filled with two spoons of sugar and water from the surahi. I forgot, the saunf concoction would get filtered by the nearest available clean piece of cotton cloth (an old, washed cotton sari piece or a clean handkerchief) and off it would be sent, to the guest. I still remember the taste of this divine drink. Clear, tangy and with just a hint of an after-bite.

Over time saunf was replaced by Kisan Orange Squash, perhaps due increasing peer pressure! Family affluence had no part to play, that I can vouch for, as this professor’s family hardly saw any influence.

Surahi’s cousin was a ghada, a larger pot. But it worked on the same principle of cooling. With a view to stabilize the ghada on the floor, and to maintain its cooling efficiency, it was placed on a little bed of sand.

Surhais would come in different configurations. While the basic style was the most popular, there were those which had designs on the surface while some even had a tap at the base of the surahi. And this great device was also portable. Like when you undertook a long train journey, you would carry a surahi along with you. And if you had forgotten to carry it, there were vendors at the rail station where you could buy one!

My sons would probably now see a surahi now only at a museum, maybe when inspecting the remains of Mohen-jo-daro civilization!

I was hoping to conclude this story with this second piece. But like part 1, part 2 too has been longer than planned. And there have been a lot of suggestions from some of you suggesting other devices. So, perhaps, I will write about more than five of these devices. But I promise to conclude this in the next post of this series.

(To be concluded)

Five Domestic Devices My Sons Would Never Use: Part 1

Over the last few decades we have seen the introduction of so many new gadgets, utilities and conveniences. Most of these have become part of our lives so much so that we wonder how we survived without them! Some obvious ones are the internet, email, mobile telephones, iPod. Heck, even mundane things like an ATM machine, credit cards, a remote-controlled TV, a split a/c, I can go on and on. How many of us who are now 40 years plus would have seen these in our school days, or even college days?

While it is easy to list out the new stuff, you should take a look at some gadgets which were very much a part of our growing up days and are now virtually extinct. Ever think our kids would operate or even see any of the following?

The Dial Phone:

In the real old days if you wanted to speak to someone over the phone, you could do so only via an intermediary, the telephone operator. He or she would juggle with some complicated connections inserting wires in multiple slots on a switchboard in front of him and then connect you with your desired number. With the advent of the dial phone and automatic exchanges, getting connected became a breeze!

For some reason all the dial phones were black in colour. In its dying years though it did get into bright red and pastel green avatars. These chunky phones occupied the pride of the place in the living room. An extension into the bedroom or any other place in the house was possible but P&T department would charge you an extra rental. Hence telephones with extensions were not too common.

Old-timers would remember the telephone dial where the numbers went clockwise from 0 to 9 with each digit having a dedicated slot on the periphery of the dial. You would stick you forefinger into the slot and rotate the dial clockwise till you could get no further. Then for the second digit of the phone number and then the third… till the process of dialing the entire number was concluded. And then you would pray and hope that the call would go through. It was perhaps a 40% chance that the call would go through at the first instance. When it did not, you would repeat the dialing process. Again. And again. Some creative ones would even rest their fingers and use objects like a pencil to do the dialing work.

The dialer community had two distinct sub-types. Those who would dial in consonance with the natural speed of the machine and stay with the dial on its return rotation to its orginal position. Then there were the others who would zip through the clockwise rotation as if they were driving their Bullet motorcycle on a highway and then stare helplessly at the dial on its return movement crawl back slowly to the original position in the manner of a moped (remember Luna?) negotiating the bylanes!

Very often the dial’s return mechanism malfunctioned forcing the dialer to apply considerable reverse force to get the dial to its original position before the second digit could be dialed!

When we got our telephone connection, my father had enough influence in the telephone department not only to get an out-of-turn allotment but also to get a number which others would find easy to dial: 5111. (Jamshedpur had only 4 digit number those days). This was a matter of great pride for us and a source of envy for others who had numbers like, say, 6987!

The slots in the dials also enabled enterprising fabricators to fashion little mechanical brass locks which could be affixed to the dial to prevent “unauthorized” people from using the phone. Or so the lock owners thought! I remember circumventing this several times. The system-beater, if you do not know, is simple! Taps of the button on the telephone cradle!! One tap= digit 1, four taps= digit 4 and ten taps for digit 0. This came in very useful on two occasions when someone thought he was being very nice to me by allowing me to receive calls but was “clever” enough to lock the phone so that I could not dial a number on it. The hostel warden in Nagpur where I did my plus 2 course and my landlord in my early days in Bangalore when I was a Paying Guest resident!

Why I had to do this is a different story altogether!

The Record Player:

This gadget was a major symbol of cultural sophistication of a household. Or its affluence. The record player -also called a gramophone- occupied the place of pride in the living room. Often draped with an embroidered cotton cloth or a white lacy covering to keep the dust away!

We never owned a record player. Could not afford it! My experience of a record player has been either at my friends’ or relatives’ place.

Records would come in different dimensions, though all were black and round. The difference was in the diameter of each and hence the speed you could play a particular record in. The largest one- called an LP, for Long Play- could be played at 33 1/3 rpm while the smaller one- EP or extended play- at 45 rpm. Some really old ones could be played only at 78 rpm! The rpm was set by a knob on the record player, positioned at: 33 1/3, 45 and 78! If you wanted some real entertainment, you could play a playful Kishore Kumar (like in his Jawaani Diwani movie track) at a slower rpm and hear his voice convert to K L Sehgal’s! Or imagine playing a Lata Mangeshkar’s 78 rpm record at 33 1/3!

We kids could never figure out how these flat black objects would store music and songs so well! There was something magical to these discs. They would be reverentially pulled out of their cardboard sleeves, wiped free of dust and grime by a special duster and placed gently on the turn table which was covered with a soft felt padding. The “needle” would be placed lightly on the disc taking care that the impact of the needle on the disc was minimal lest the disc get damaged.

If the disc did get scratched, the needle would get stuck and the same small piece of the music would keep playing. Like if you were enjoying the aforementioned Jawaani Diwaani number and the needle got stuck, you might here the following: “Yeh jawaaani, hai deewani, hai deewani, hai deewani, hai deewani…”, till someone rescued the situation by nudging the needle along manually!

So now you know the genesis of the Hindi saying, “uski sui atak gayi hai”, used when someone goes on and on about the same issue. (commonly muttered under the breath by the husband when the wife goes into a nagging mode)

Totally scratched records too had their uses. Like the artistic one in the family would paint on the black surface a landscape, or a bunch of flowers or even portraits of Nehru or Tagore and this disc with its newly acquired work of art would get displayed prominently on the living room walls.

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(It has been a long post already, I will come back later with the remaining three devices. Suggestions, anyone?)

(To be continued)